Living on the Edge

Chip Ingram: Everyone faces adversity, pain, difficulty, heartbreak, disappointment. How you respond will shape you one way or the other, either for good or for evil. Today, we're going to learn how to respond the right way. Stay with me.

Dave Druey: Godliness, Paul tells Timothy, is not just beneficial for the life to come. It's good for now—for your family, your relationships, your mind, your character. The training Paul describes in 1 Timothy isn't passive; it's vigorous, athletic. And today, Chip Ingram gets specific about what that training looks like in real, everyday life.

I'm Dave Druey, and this is Living on the Edge, continuing our series called, You Can Make Disciples: Personal Coaching from the Apostle Paul. Please open your Bible to 1 Timothy, chapter 4, verse 1, as we continue. Here's Chip with his message titled, Step Out.

Chip Ingram: The Spirit explicitly says that in the latter times, some will fall away from the faith. Why? Paying attention to deceitful spirits and the teachings of demons. In verses 6 through 10, he's going to give him a prescription to be a good teacher. He says, in pointing out these things to the brothers and sisters, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, constantly nourished on the words of the faith and of good doctrine which you have been following.

That's why the most important decision you'll make every single day, multiple times a day, is what you allow in your mind. Notice again the content. Stay away from worthless stories that are typical of old women. Rather, discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness. For this we labor and strive because we have set our hope on the living God, who is the Savior of all mankind, and especially of believers.

Then he gives him this personal challenge. He says, prescribe and teach these things. Listen, this is Paul really coaching individually. Let no one look down on your youthfulness, but rather, where should he be godly? In your speech, in your conduct, in your love, in your faith, in your purity, show yourself an example of those who believe. In other words, you need to step out. Do not neglect the spiritual gift within you which was granted you through the prophecy with the laying on of hands by the council of elders.

Take pains with these things. That's how you build resilience. We all want to be that person, but we don't want the process. I was giving a guy a hard time who had a tight shirt on, and some of us could tell he lifts weights. As we were standing next to each other, I let him know that this is really a very loose shirt, and I wear these loose shirts because I'm completely ripped underneath. That would be a lie.

If you've ever gone through that cycle and you get with a buddy, and it's three times a week, and they always want to lift at 6:00 AM or some stupid hour. The first three days you do it and you think this is the dumbest idea in the world, and they shame you into it. You do it another week and everything still really hurts. About the third week, you look down and you go, I think a little something's happening there.

You do it about six weeks, do it about three months, pretty soon you start looking like a different person. What you're doing physically is willfully taking your body through resistance and breaking it down so that it can grow back stronger. Could you imagine what would happen if you would rethink adversity rather than, oh God, why me? Or, this is so terrible, or life's not really fair?

If you saw it more as the hand of a kind and loving God in the midst of a very fallen world, of which he allows people the freedom to make decisions—including you and me, some of which really hurt other people and some it's just a fallen world—if you would receive that as, this is a test of my faith. I'm going to get up each day and like Timothy, I'm going to take pains.

This passage has coaching nuggets to me that are the big takeaways. Here's the truth: some will fall away from the faith. I don't want to sound negative, I want to be realistic. Some of you in this room will fall away from the faith. You'll pay attention to other things. You'll buy cheap substitutes. You'll start with just a little flirting here or there.

Two years from now or five years from now, you'll remember what it was like to be at a time like this, and you'll probably poo-poo it. What happens when you fall away from the faith is you always have to then rewrite your past history. I've done this for a living for 40 years. I've sat in so many rooms where someone says, well, what I realized was I never really was in love with her. I can see where your porn addiction and stepping out on her and having a couple of affairs would probably sort of mar your perspective of the past.

You'd be surprised how many college freshmen go away to school, and everyone else is smoking dope, and pretty soon, I'm not sure if I believe in God anymore. Big intellectual issue. Here's the thing: when you're doing things that are wrong and you know they're wrong, it gnaws at your conscience. The only way to cop out is you have to have some resolution in your mind, so you change your theology.

But it doesn't change the truth. Here's the thing: you always get what you sow. The challenge is, as the writer of Ecclesiastes points out, is you never reap in the same season. The reason evil is so—when I sin and especially before I was a believer when I sinned, people said sin is terrible, but I actually enjoyed it quite a bit. I really did.

Most sin is taking a good thing that God designed for us and getting it at the wrong time or in the wrong way. The thing about sin is you can do it and it just doesn't seem like that was no big deal. That didn't—I didn't hurt anybody. I'm not addicted to anything. This isn't a problem. My marriage didn't break apart. I didn't become some wild, crazy, terrible person.

Well, that's like a farmer dropping a seed in the ground and coming back the next day and going, man, that seed doesn't work. Oh, yeah, it does. You just can't see it right now. Then you water it. That's why it's so hard to be godly because you have to sow righteousness. When you sow righteousness, it takes time for it to grow, for your mind to be renewed, for you to change.

When you sow good things, it takes a while to see the fruit, and when you sow bad things, it takes a while to see the fruit. So this really is Paul trying to help Timothy understand some will fall away because of what they pay attention to. But he says, for this godliness, Christlikeness, faithfulness, this is what we labor and strive.

Here's the thing: it's not just for now. We've fixed our hope on the living God. There is hope for us every moment of every day and a heaven that awaits us, who's the Savior of all men and especially of those who believe. As we've said, Christ has made it possible by his death and resurrection. He has forgiven all people, but not all people will be saved because some will reject the offer.

It's just like I've got a bunch of grandkids—twelve, if you can believe it. I can have presents for everyone, but the only ones that get the presents are the ones who open the package. So far we're doing pretty well when we put presents under the tree. They seem to be very intelligent grandchildren. They grab their present, see their name on it, and they open it.

But it's amazing to me how many adults don't do the same thing with the present. The scripture says it's by grace, that's a word for something that's free or it's a present. For by grace you are saved by faith. It's not a result of your works, lest any one of us would boast. It's by putting your faith in Christ.

Notice the response here is, discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness. That's what he told Timothy to do. Basically, lifting weights is great, running marathons is great, but godliness is good for now and forever. Second, do not neglect the spiritual gift within you. Notice this last one is, take pains, be absorbed with, so that your progress will be evident to all.

Pay close attention to yourself and your teaching, and persevere in these things. What I want to do now is I want to kind of go into coaching mode about how you can become a godly man. I mean very, very specifically how you can become a more godly man than you already are, because a lot of you are very godly men.

What does it take to live our lives where we're an example and people see our progress? The subject here is godly leadership amidst spiritual warfare. The underlying issue is Timothy's personal growth and development. Here's the underlying question for us: am I willing to pay the price to be a godly man? Underline pay the price.

And then fulfill God's calling on my life. Did you know God's got a calling for everyone, not just pastors or missionaries? He's got something for you to do that no one on this whole earth, eight billion people with their specific DNA—Ephesians 2:10 says this: You are his workmanship, literally his tapestry, his poem, his work of art, created in Christ Jesus unto a good work which he preordained from the foundations of the earth that you would do.

Your personality, where you were born, your family of origin, the good, the bad, the ugly, your spiritual gifts, your natural talents, the adversity you've been through, all of those things provide a package. You are able to do certain things, think certain ways, help certain people in ways like no one else in the world. Let me tell you something: when you discover what that is and you start traveling in that lane, it is awesome.

Dave Druey: Stay with us. More from Chip Ingram in just a moment. This is Living on the Edge. Did you know Chip's teaching is also available on YouTube? It's a great way to go deeper or share a message with someone in your life. Just go to YouTube and search, Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. You'll find complete video teaching series, Life Lessons with Chip, and content you won't see anywhere else. While you're there, hit subscribe so you never miss anything new. That's Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram on YouTube. Now back to today's message.

Chip Ingram: Chariots of Fire, anybody see the rerun of that? I love the line, "When I run, I feel God's pleasure." Can I tell you that's God's will for you? For some, when I counsel, I feel God's pleasure. When I build a company unto the Lord, I feel God's pleasure. When I help these orphans, I feel God's pleasure. When I teach that Sunday school class, I feel God's pleasure. When I help these couples get back together, I feel God's pleasure.

When I make a lot of money, I have a great, great friend. We went to a conference about 18 years ago, and he came away from the conference—it was on generosity, and he was fairly wealthy at the time, had been broke two or three times, but knew how to make a bunch of money. We came out of the conference, and he goes, I now know what I'm going to do with the rest of my life. He was near retirement. I said, what? He goes, I'm going to get so much money. I thought, boy, this conference really had an impact on you.

Then he paused: so I can give it all away. I mean, he's an entrepreneur. He's got water parks going over here. Buying and selling, he just took a piece of land over here in a place of Texas. He's doing a deal over here, a deal over here, and he's just given away millions of dollars. Instead of sitting around, well, guess I'm going to retire. Of course, I've done the research, and people that retire and don't do anything die in about five years. So I think that's not a good plan.

He just thought, I'm in the prime of my life. The joy of getting to just change whole people's lives, whole villages' lives, water in these places in the world where people were dying of bad water. I mean, you figure out, and God will show you. It's not like he's going, door number three, door number four. No, no, no. He's going like, here's the door. Let's partner. Do you realize I made you? I made you different than anyone else. And if you'd stop comparing yourself with other people who you think—and you would just realize who you really are, man, I'll use you. That's exciting stuff.

But are you willing to pay the price? There's a lot of distractions. The action requires to step out. To step out and be an example and to step out and not worry about what other people think. It means going into spiritual training. It means discovering your spiritual gift. It means finding a mentor, a friend, or a band of brothers, because you cannot do this alone. It's not hard, it's impossible.

I went into spiritual training early on. I did some things like no Bible, no breakfast. If you don't like to eat breakfast, you'll have to try something else. I loved to eat breakfast, and I just developed the habit that I got in God's word first thing every day. Mind over mattress. It's really simple. You develop habits. Set the alarm and don't ever push snooze. It's illegal.

Because here's, you build fiber. It goes off, I get up, because my body is not going to tell me how I'm going to live my life. My emotions are not going to dictate my life. I'm in charge of my life, and you go into training to be in charge of your life. You don't let—oh, I feel sad today, I feel kind of bad today. That's just fine. I really feel bad, I really feel sad. Those are very genuine emotions, and I'm going to choose to do what I was supposed to do anyway. That's how you live.

The moment you make the choice and start doing it, you get grace. You have bad days and you do stupid things, and you get with your guys and you say, you know, this week I did some bad things, I did some stupid things, and I've told the Father I'm really sorry. Guys, will you pray with me? I need to own it. Confess your sins to one another that you might be healed. That's life.

The unspoken need is to develop personal—can you guess?—discipline. The source of discipline, according to Titus 2:11-13, is grace. For it's the grace of God that appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us. This is what grace does: to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly. Really, the word is disciplined lives, righteously and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.

You've got to know the source of discipline is not willpower. Second, you have to embrace the process. Hebrews 12:11: All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful, yet those who have been trained by it afterwards, it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness. You need to become a delayed gratification junkie. I tend to be always in a hurry. I went into training for two years because I was always the last guy, I was always in a hurry, I always rushed, I was putting myself under stress, and you can't grow spiritually and love people if you're always in a hurry.

And so I went into training and I drove on the right lane for two years. It was painful. For two years, if I walked into the grocery store—I'm the guy that's going, line, line, line, who's the best cashier, this line's moving—I'm in this line, now think I'm going to move to this line. Get on the long line. Review some verses. A calmness. I used to get just to the airport just to—I get there early now. Take this new routine. Gonna grab a cup of coffee. Gonna spend some time really pondering.

Took two years. I was such a workaholic, but I went into training and little by little, God changed my pace, my thinking, stress. You can go into training. The most powerful thing I've done in all my life in life change is memorizing scripture. The practice, the habits of discipline. Romans 12:2 we already quoted it. Colossians 3 is a really powerful passage, the whole chapter, but it has this truth on the front end that helps you understand how all the practice is on the back end.

After talking about where to set your mind and talking about what Christ has done, he says, so then as those who are chosen by God—so you're wanted—those who are holy—so that's how God sees you—and are deeply loved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone.

And beyond all these things, put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity, and let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called into one body. And let the word of God richly dwell within you with all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another, giving thanks through him to God the Father. And in whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him.

What I try and do—I either do Psalm 23, the Lord's Prayer—but you know that moment just as you're waking up? I call it the gray zone. You're not like click, but you're starting. And what I try and do is at that very moment, because it sets my day: since I'm loved, since I'm holy, since I'm chosen. Then I just whisper, oh God, would you help me put on a heart of compassion?

Help me to feel what you feel when you see people in need. Kindness. I just go through that just when I first wake up. It starts my day in a very different way. I think very carefully about what I put in my mind before I go to bed. I have a little stack of verses that I just review just before I go to bed because as you sleep and you're unconscious, your brain works.

All I'm saying is, if you wanted to run a marathon, except for some of us that are a little older with joints that don't work, by and large, if you went into training for six months, everyone here could run 26.2 miles without stopping. I watched my assistant do it years ago, a complete non-athlete. But she changed her diet. She started walking. Then after she started walking, she learned how to jog. Then she had a friend and then she—could I come in a little bit later, I'm going to run two miles.

Then it was like, it's Friday, I'm going to get up really early, but I'm doing a ten-mile—in six months, because you have in you all that you need from God. What you need now is to go into training. And as you do that, literally for three, six, eight, ten weeks, you're going to say no to so much TV. You're going to say no to some things and renew your mind. And don't get me wrong, you don't have to go crazy, but if you'll stop putting some things in your mind and start putting some things—others in your mind that's truth—your emotions will change, your demeanor will change, God will change you.

Dave Druey: You've been listening to Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram and a message titled, Step Out. We're in a study called, You Can Make Disciples, and we'll hear some final thoughts from Chip in a moment.

This entire series is available on the Living on the Edge podcast, a great way to catch up or go back through any message. And if you want to hear the full version of what Chip teaches, the Chip Ingram Sermon podcast has every sermon, complete and unedited, wherever you get your podcasts.

If today's message got your attention, Chip has a book we think you'll want. It's called, Yes, You Really Can Change, and it unpacks how the transformation God promises in scripture is real and available to you not someday, but now. Chip walks you through what has to happen on the inside for lasting change to take root and how to cooperate with the work God is already doing in your life.

Our current series is about discipleship, and that's why with every purchase of this book, we're including a second copy so you can share the journey with someone you know. We want to equip you to invest in the people around you. Just go to livingontheedge.org/offers and look for the book, Yes, You Really Can Change.

Every program you hear is funded entirely by the generosity of listeners. If this ministry has helped you, consider giving back by donating online at livingontheedge.org, give over the phone by dialing 888-333-6003, or donate through the mail at Living on the Edge, PO Box 3007, Atlanta, Georgia 30324. Well, now here's Chip with some final thoughts to wrap up today's program.

Chip Ingram: I gave people kind of three action steps in order to step out. The first one was to go into spiritual training. And I shared how in my life it was, I needed to start first thing in the morning, and I just want to encourage our listeners right now: make meeting with God the first thing you do every day.

Second, you have to discover your spiritual gift. When we function in the gift—the supernatural abilities that God's given us—it transforms our walk with the Lord. And third and last, you have to find some people to do life with. Whether it's a peer or even better, a mentor, find someone that you would say, hey, would you just meet with me for a half hour or an hour, maybe once a week for a month? I just want to grow and I need help.

Believe me, ask God for that person, go ask them, but get in spiritual shape. We keep waiting for something to happen, and I meet people all the time who kind of whine, if you will, about God isn't doing this and he's kind of not doing that. I want to tell you: he is so ready to help you, but the ball's in your court.

Dave Druey: I'm Dave Druey, and we'll see you next time when Chip Ingram shares how to relate to the people around you in a way that actually works. That's next time, here on Living on the Edge. Today's program is produced and sponsored by Living on the Edge.